While I do believe the man compared Scripture with Scripture, and proved a point, as is the case with many young fundamentalist preachers, his egotistical delivery was sickening. Also, it is not for a pastor to get into a church member’s personal life, and pull those passages of Scripture as a reason why he can. A pastor’s job, by definition, is to feed the flock of God, not to beat the flock, as many pastors are so apt to do these days. Also, there are so many more types of people who have the rule over us, and watch for our souls, not just limited to pastors

BULL GIPP!
Another evangelist there to straighten out the pew dwellers, there to make sure they properly reverence the M-O-g. (at least he’s honest about his fleeting influence… he’ll be gone tomorrow, off to straighten out another congregation and stroke another pastor’s ego)

It’s amazing how he strings together the verses about leaders (plural) and applies it to the (singular) pastor. It is amazing how he takes it out of the context that we are to submit to one another in love and makes it about submittting to the will and commands of the local deity. (pssst, that’s what they call a CULT btw.)

This type of preaching is about the power in the pulpit and making sure the congregation is “doing” church correctly. Works sanctification and man worship.
BULL GIPP! 😡

Error like this just irks me to no end. He is preaching as if Hebrews was written at some Messianic Jewish denominational convention and the writer is addressing the delegation to submit to the pastors over their individual congregations.

The sad thing is – people will go away from that “convicted” and “determined to get right” and tell others about how they heard some “hard preachin'” and they will never see Jesus love for them, regardless of their stupid outward actions.

Oh yeah, I was one of those. I can think of one particular preacher in chapel at Fundy U that I couldn’t stand; I thought he was so boring. Later, I heard the same man preach similar messages in my (current) church and I couldn’t get enough. His preaching hadn’t changed- my preference for showmanship over exegesis had done a complete 180.

Me too Darren! I used to love the IFB evangelist style preaching for years. But it took a long time for me to realize that it really had very little impact on my life. It was like drinking a bottle of Jolt cola or something. It gets you excited and “on fire” for a little while but since there was no substance it just didn’t last. I think someone might have mentioned it recently on SFL but it is actually this type of preaching that is tickling to the ears. I’ll take a “boring” exegetical sermon where I’m actually fed over this stuff any time.

Context doesn’t matter. The Lord laid it on his heart, so now this is the new context. This is how it applies to you right now. He’s God’s man. You don’t question God’s man. God brought you to this service for a reason. To hear this message and learn something from it. If you don’t like it, well, it sounds like you have a problem with authority. 😡

About 5 minutes into that sermon and I would have realized that God indeed did put me there for a purpose… to get my grocery list done, jot down reminders of things I needed to get done, plan a menu for the week, and make sure I had everyone on my Christmas card list.

I probably would have been taking notes, and by notes I mean doing an analysis and deconstruction of the sermon’s theology, logic, etc. I got lots of practice in critical thinking and analysis in chapel at Fundy U. 😉 That or I would have been reading the Bible.

What would proper exegesis of this verse mean? How much “authority” does a pastor have – over the church as well as over me individually? If exegesis was proper, what does a person not submitting to a pastoral authority act like?

It’s true that believers are to be subject to elders. Note that the writer of Hebrews speaks in the plural. You are not to obey *him* that has the rule over you, but *they* that have rule over you: a plurality of elders who, themselves, are subject to each other and also can have charges and claims brought against them by even the least member of christendom, before representatives of the church.

Furthermore, we are cautioned by the writer of Hebrews to consider “the end of their conversation,” an odd admonition, for the writer is speaking as though these men were dead. Perhaps some elders had died peaceful and righteous deaths, and the writer is reminding the readers that such an exit vindicates a godly life, and that godly life should be imitated. Or perhaps he is offering a test strip to the reader: take seriously only those teachers who have died well in the faith.

Either way, Fundamentalism fails this test, for its ministers live lives of secrets and corruption, and you cannot find a brave man in the bunch. Lester Roloff died like a demented clown, killing all those aboard his plane with him.

Okay, Darrell, I know you posted two posts yesterday, but how it usually works is that you usually post something while I’m drinking my coffee and having breakfast, then I comment and then get ready for work. I know its Saturday, but hairstylists work on Saturdays so it’s like a regular day for me.

It took me so long to see what was wrong because most of the IFB churches I was in DID use the right words – like “love your enemies” and “don’t follow men; follow God” and “God’s Word is the basis for our beliefs.” I BELIEVED them. But when I started comparing what they SAID with how they actually LIVED, I saw the disconnect. (Plus there’s always the wackos who seem to speak out of both sides of their mouth: saying “love” one minute yet preaching judgment and sarcasm and, yes, hatred the next.

Yes, PW, the double-speak they use does get confusing. Fundies still use it to try to convince me they are not the way I am portraying them. They are conditioned to ignore obvious facts and find comfort in their MOG’s words.

Sadly “sermons” like this are what I subjected myself to for well over 20 years. At least once a month there was some version of this sermon, usually with some straw man built up and tore down in the span of about 30 minutes. My mog was especially fond of the “I’m called and you’re not – nyah nyah nyah” angle. This kind of preaching makes me want to just vomit.

I sometimes wonder if Fundie preachers realize that there are pastors out there who don’t spend 85% of their preaching time
1. Begging people to come to church
2. Demanding Respect
3. Venerating the KJV
4. Ranting about clothing/hair.
5. Generally lauding the good ole days.
6. Telling “jokes” about their wives or women in general.

Definitely! As one who is painfully shy, I had to give up the door-knocking thing or go insane… so I became the lowest of the low, both in my mind, and in the eyes of my fellow fundy church members. It was routine for me to be talking with a staff member, a church member would come up, greet the staff member, shake his hand, and walk off, never even acknowledging my existence.

After enough of this, depression set in — would I go through the rest of my life without have a friend?

Your mum would hate me. I preached this morning (brethren assembly, any man is allowed to share) on our perfect nature in Christ, that no sin will condemn us, and that our only real motivation for not sinning is the fact that we are dead and Jesus is in us.

We don’t even need to fight against sin. We are dead to it. Jesus is victorious. When we don’t believe this, that’s when we sin.

@exifb- we are dead to sin, but sin wars against us (1 peter 2:11). the bible assumes that we are striving against it (Heb 12:4)and commands us to abstain from it (1 peter 2:11). in all of our vigorous activities both positive (the “putting on” part of the christian life) and negative (the “putting off” part of the christian life), “it is god who works” in us “to will and to work for His good pleasure” (cf eph 4: 17-32 with phil 2: 12-13).

The Greek word for obey in Hebrews 13:17 is not “hupakoe” which means to hearken submissively but it is “peitho” which means to pursuade, or to be pursuaded of the truth or falsness of something by arguement. The argument and context of Hebrews is for the Jews to throw off the OT customs because the OT law had fullfilled it’s purpose. It was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Paul was trying to lighten their burden. No where does it imply complete submission to a pastor without question. It implys taking off the burden of the law. So not only are pastors wrong to use this verse to justify their man-made standards but this pastor is wrong to criticize those who check the scriptures to see if the pastor is right.

I am a Baptist by intellectual assent, and one of the things which is characteristic of Baptist churches is the notion of the priesthood of all believers. I struggle to see anyone calling themselves a baptist and then lauding it over other believers, when there is no scriptural justification for such behaviour.

Fundies don’t believe in the Priesthood of every believer… They believe in a Caste system that exalts the M-O-g to the top of the pyramid. People are sheep in the minds of the Fundy leadership and they act as “shepherds” over their flocks… and the people have been programmed to accept their roll as mindless sheep. Voila’ Americanized Christiaity.

One of the best descriptions of the role of pastor I’ve ever read is under Pioneer Theology (go look that one up sometime). In that, the clergy is the Cook who serves up what the Buffalo Hunter (Holy Spirit) provides.

Ruling seems to be all these guys ever want to do. I’m glad my pastor is a friend and a very humble man.

A pastor who views his pastorship as a position of authority and power will abuse it and the people under him. If it is viewed as a position of responsibility and servanthood (stewardship), no abuse will happen.

I know I sound like a broken record but Lord Acton’s Axiom is so relative to Fundie leadership:

â€œI cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it.â€

Christ showed us the perfect example in John 13 before he was put to death, as he spoke to His disciples. He told them to “love one another, as I have loved you.” He just showed them how to love by washing their feet earlier in the chapter and then immediately after that Peter betrays Him, and we all know that He forgave Peter and later allowed Peter to be used at Pentecost to start the Church Age.

In fact, that is the mark of a successful evangelist, one who can stroke the pastors ego and make it look like the pew dwelling sheeple are not loving him enough. That is part of the evangelists mission is to preach the obligatory sermon on why the M-O-g is to be worshipped (of course couched in terms of reverence and worthy of his hire so it doesn’t look like idolatry) and of course it must be made to look like it is because the audience is in sin for not being loving enough or paying himn enough, or the audience has pride in their hearts. you know guilt the audience into giving the M-O-g a pay raise or at least slip him an extra 20-50-100+ in the handshake as you tell him how much you love him on the way out the door.
😯

“Isn’t it terrible that someone who is suppose to care about you, actually does.”

This can happen, but rarely does. My observation is that this happens with a close knit group that surrounds the pastor and his family. Once this group is formed, others are SOL. Start another church, buy another ManOGawd.

Hebrews is not written to us. Plain and simple. Books to us are Romans to Philemon. Hebrews is for the tribulation crowd. Makes sense and I have Pastor Paulson from scatteredchristians.org to thank for understanding it.

This guy in the video is pouring on the guilt… I feel sorry for his wife and kids.

Oh, and it’s not even about obedience. It doesn’t say anything about obeying them. They had been going through great persecution and the leaders who stood on their faith were worthy of their imitation. He said to “remember your leaders… imitate their faith.” Their faith was that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” If there is an obedience here, it is obedience to their doctrine, not their whims. How much love and grace of God did anyone hear in this “sermon”?

Thank God, He also wrote, “Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings,” (v. 9 ESV) Here’s hoping someone had the sense to read ahead and was not led away by this man’s diverse and strange teachings. 👿